The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-07-11
DRESS OF WOMEN WRITER'S.
Neat Costumes Rather than Slovenly
Gowns Their Customary Raiment.

From the Toronto Globe.
There seems to be a prevalent opinion
that literary women are, like the illustrious
Mrs. Jellyby, slovenly in their dress as
well as negligent in their housekeeping.
Both these charges remain to be proved,
however, and the examination of the first
will be quite enough for once.
Jane Austin and her sister were remark
ably neat i'll their dress, but rather unheed-
full of the fashionable and becoming. 1t is
said that they took to the costume of
middle life before their books of years
required it, Joanna Bailhe was fond of
dress, and dressed exquisitely. With a
delicate, graceful figure, not large-boned,
like many English women, she wore her
own gray hair and pretty brown silk gowns
and bonnets-just right for an old lady.
Mary Lamb, the devoted sister of the
delightful Charles, was neat and plain IN
her dress but she did not change much
with the fashions. However, she affected
no indifference to this delightful subject;
she wrote to friend, Il do dearly love
worked muslin" and she took great delight
in curtain silks sent her by a friend in
China. Her usual dress was of black stuff
or silk, and for great occasions there was
'dove-colored silk, with kerchief of snow
white muslin folded across her bosom" and
cap then in fashion with deep-frilled
border and bow on top With all her
daintiness, she often dipped her delicate
white hand into her tortolseShell snuff-box.
When Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
came to court, the Prince of Wales George
H. called out in a rapture to the Princess to
look how becomingly she was dressed.
Lady Mary always dresses well, y said the
Princess, dryly But in spite of this
general statement, Lady Mary seems to
have INDUCED in some eccentricitles. AT
one time she wore a "full-bottomed wig"
on returning from Turkey she sometimes
let her fine dark hair flow loosely, and
was fond of dressing in the Turkish costume.
Walpole says that her dress, on her arrival
in London, after her life abroad, was a
galimatias of several countries. She wore
an old bIack-laced hood, fur about her
neck, dimity petticoat, and slippers When
Charlotte BrOnte went to London, about the
time Shirley was published, she is
described as "a young looking lady, almost
childlike i'll stature, i'll deep mourning
dress neat as Quakers." Indeed, neatnesS
was a characteristic of her dress, and the
coverings of her hands and feet were
always extremely dainty. She loved
modest apparel, and thought a pink-lined
bonnet too gay for her, while she did not
buy beautiful silks of pale sweet colors,"
at shillings, as she had not the spirit nor
the means but chose a black silk at 3
shillings a yard Emily Bronte was dressed
while at school in Brussels in ill-cut, lank
skirts and leg o mutton sleeves, which she
liked and wore whether in or out of fashion.
Harriet Martineau is described as plainly
dressed.
OF George Eliot's clothes we know little,
save that her gowns were plain. and that
over her abundant hair, still untouched by
gray, she wore a cap of lace or muslin with
lappets of rich point or Valenciennes fastened
under her chin. When George Sand was
yet young girl she wore a boys blouse
and CATERS for a ramble over her rough
country, and later, in Paris, she continued
to go about like a collegian of 16, i'll all
weathers, places and times. Margaret
Fuller delighted in elegant and well-chosen
clothes, but she did not give her
time to fashionable frivolities. Lydia Maria
Child dressed all her life in a plain, cheap
fashion. Lucretia Mott wore the Quakers
subdued gown, white kerchief and little
cap Maria Mitchell, although not Friend,
dresses simply in black or gray, with a
white muslin kerchief about her neck, a
black lace cap over her gray curls, and
often a white shawl thrown over her
shoulders. Rose Terry Cooke dresses hand
somely Ella Wheeler Wilcox is said to
wear a Directoirette dress with short sleeves
and a low neck while composing her
passionate poetry. Miss Mary i. Booth, of
Hdrper's Bdzar, dresses plainly while
about her work, but with much richness
and taste at other times; she wears many
beautiful rings, and has the woman's weak
ness for rare old lace and cashmere shawls
that can be drawn through ring Frances
Hodgson Burnett is fond of dress, and
likes to work in dainty lace, to put bows on
dresses and hats, so that she does many of
these things for herself